Archive for December 2013
John Durant’s Very Excellent ReasonTV Talk and Q&A Session
Since I get email notice of everything ReasonTV puts up, I was both delighted and surprised yesterday to have this pop up, a talk with Q&A from smart people about : The Paleo Manifesto: Ancient Wisdom for Lifelong Health. …And then I saw it was a WHOLE HOUR! Oh, man, with so much hitting me……...
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That Commie Has No Clothes (Guess Who)
The cause for celebration today is the dismal performance of our Commie-in-Chief, all busy these days using careful words eulogizing a mass murderer: Nelson “Che Guevara” Mandela. I mean c’mon, people? Did you see his very carefully worded shpeel, here, in the soccer stadium? Ask yourself why such guarded adulation for such a “hero”—all with……...
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The Gut-Brain Axis and Narrative Complex Dreaming with Resistant Starch (even X-Rated)
I'd say 90%+ of N=1ers have reported the same thing—vivid dreaming when taking potato starch at night before bedtime. Longtime commenter, Dr. Gabriella Kadar, has newly discovered X-Rated Dreams, just in case anyone might be interested in that sort of thing.
The dreams: Totally X rated. I don’t know if that says something about me or what, but it’s every night. Not problematic, just not the usual. I was really wondering if I should add this but what the hell, for the sake of slightly embarrassing accuracy it’s not just ‘vivid dreams’. Or maybe other people were using the term ‘vivid’ to mean the same thing. I was wondering if besides effects on neurotransmitters there’s an effect on hormones.
Here's another commenter, just in this morning.
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Richard,
I decided to try potato starch based on the reports of sleep and vivid dreams. I Jumped right in, getting a bag and some Lifeway "greek style" plain (full fat) kefir from whole foods last night.
I figured start off full speed ahead, to see what a full 4 tablespoons would do right before bed, after never consuming raw potato starch before. So 4 tablespoons PS, 1 cup kefir (quite thick!). First, I noticed absolutely no increase in flatulence. I was actually quite shocked, given the reports. I hope this isn't a bad sign that my gut is dead, haha. Moving on...
I drank this at 2:30 am. I had fallen asleep at my girfriend's around 11, woke up, drove home, mixed and drank, then went to bed. I had difficulty falling asleep (always happens when I wake up and drive at 2am). What was different, though, was that I quickly started feeling a sense of well being, and energy. Perhaps the calorie load, or the assorted milk mood properties, caused this, but as I was lying there, I felt an increasing sense of well-being, an increasing sense of energy, and an increasing sense of relaxation (I'll call it mild euphoria). Finally fell asleep.
Dreams were exactly as you described.
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Resistant Starch Fixes The Same Old Low Carb Diet Problems
From Diana in comments, where this 10-year type 2 diabetic talks about losing and gaining back the same 20-25 pounds for the last five years...but guess what happened over the last 6 months of supplementing with resistant starch, plus upping carb intake with no adverse impact? Read to find out.
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Hi Amy:
I just wanted to give you my N=1 with regards to RS and weight loss. Like you, I have been on the roller coaster my whole life. Always losing weight, gaining it back and then some...wash, rinse, repeat. Average of 130 pounds overweight my whole adult life. Now, at age 44, I finally feel like I have found what works…for me.
I am a Type 2 diabetic (10 years), and have been controlling with low carb for about 5 years. It was never easy to stick to for me. I always had those cravings for what I couldn’t have. (Low Carb was great for my blood sugar numbers, however.) I had been gaining and losing the same 20-25 pounds in this time also. Not a good situation. Then came Richard, TaterTot and Potato Starch, and nothing has been the same since! I re-started a good clean low carb diet on May 20, 2013 as a foundation. I started supplementing Bobs PS at the same time, beginning with a tablespoon in my Kefir or Yogurt for lunch every day, as well as a tablespoon in water before bed (oh the dreams!!!). Long story short, 6 months later I have lost 60, yes SIXTY pounds! I supplement 3-4 tablespoons most days, skip every once in a while too, and always have some with a fermented food. (Yogurt and Kefir mostly, but I have been known to dip a Bubbies pickle in PS as I eat it, as well as mixing in with Kimchee too!).
I am truly amazed at how I feel. RS has totally erased my cravings and controls my appetite like no other!
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Chicken Fried Rice, Filipino Sinangag (Garlic Fried Rice) Inspired
When living in Japan throughout the entire late 80’s I travelled a lot to the Philippines and Thailand; and all I ever wanted for a breakfast was some sort of rice dish with egg. In the PI, that was sinangag, and in Thailand, plain white rice and a couple of fried eggs on top—with a side……...
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Nelson Mandela: No Gandhi; No Martin Luther King; Not Even Close—A “Che Guevara” is more like it
Henry David Thoreau is the backdrop: Civil Disobedience, the application. And just like Mandela, Che is a murderer, too (a post on this blog from waaaay back in 2005). Did he ever read it, Thoreau’s work? What does it matter? He chose to be a thug, inciting violence, organizing violence against innocents (like Obama, for instance). I’ve seen……...
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Dr. BG Comments in Comments on Resistant Starch vs. FODMAPS
One of the issues that's been in the background but more common recently is the issue of why resistant starch? What's so special? We have other prebiotics and can't we just use them?
Grace ("Dr. BG" Animal Pharm) answers that question in comments, edited below.
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I'm not a physicist but RESISTANT STARCH are DNA shaped carbs. Does that make quantum sense? The energetics and molecular shapes are extraordinary. I don't get it completely, but I know it's inherently what sets it apart from ordinary non starch polysaccharides and obviously glucose, fructose, fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols (FODMAPS)...and our own endogenously produced fuctose which we make on the tips of our microvilli for the microcritters to graze on when food is lacking (between meals? when our genotypes fail to dictate like I'm FUT2(-/-) non-secretor).
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The Most Dramatic Resistant Starch Success Story Yet
No introduction necessary.
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Mr. Nikoley,
You and Tatertot Tim have stumbled, if that’s the correct word, onto something having more repercussions of which we “resistant-starchers” may be aware. The following is of course anecdotal, strictly an N=1 experiment.
Some relevant background: I am 61 years old, weigh 240 pounds (still obese but 60 pounds less so), and my menu is 99% very-low carb, less than 20 gm/day. In the past I ate sugar and its variants with abandon, to the point of gluttony; I love the stuff. As a result I had very high blood pressure and I was on the verge of becoming a full-blown T2 diabetic. My sugar cravings are now under control, my blood pressure is way down, the diabetes threat is non-existent, and blah, blah, blah, you know the story. However, a couple of things have continued to bother me.
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Shit: That’s One Tough Pill To Swallow
Just when you thought things couldn't get an weirder:
After Antibiotics, the Feces Pill Remains
"Some people with potentially lethal gut infections find that the only effective treatment is an orally-administered fecal transplant. The treatment is gaining acceptance among physicians."
Olga Khazan pens a pretty interesting piece and in parts, resorts to what one has to do, I guess, and that's just toss your hands up and laugh. First, some of the serious.
By the time patients arrive at the office of Bruce Hirsch, an infectious disease specialist at North Shore University Hospital in Long Island, they’re desperate. Many have diarrhea that strikes up to 20 times a day. They eagerly pay $1,200 out of pocket for the only thing that might make their lives normal again.
Hirsch offers them an orange pill, which they swallow. Underneath the pill’s outer shell are several smaller gel capsules. Inside the smallest capsule is a glycerin-suspended clump of bacteria that’s been extracted from human feces.
“It’s like a Russian doll,” Hirsch told me. “With a surprise in the middle.”
Hirsch is one of just a few dozen specialists in the country who perform fecal transplants—procedures used primarily to treat people who have severe gut infections caused by an overgrowth of a bacteria called Clostridium difficile.
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Just Watch. Bulletproof Exec Dave Asprey is Going to So Biohack Resistant Starch
Another one is on board to check it out and this is good:
Is there such a thing as Bulletproof Resistant Starch?
My friend Richard Nikoley over at Free the Animal has blown the doors off the Paleo community recently with an amazing series of posts on something called resistant starch. If you are not familiar with Richard’s work, he’s a little crazy. As in totally willing to go on an all milk and kefir diet for a whole month. Or willing to experience crazy amounts of intestinal gas to test the effects of lots of potato flour on his blood glucose. He’s discovered some cool stuff, and Mark Sisson and Chris Kresser picked it up. Now it’s all over the paleo world.
Once I got wind, here's what I said and meant in comments:
Dave, I've idly thought from time to time that you would find this irresistible as a hack.
The comment thread is kind of amusing. Apparently, because I said some bad words to judge and characterize certain individuals, it's very, very bad that Dave had the audacity to link up this totally unrelated work. I guess it's tainted, and so when I say xyz, it means something different than when a pure individual says xyz. That hundreds of people have commented about great individual results in about a dozen posts about resistant starch doesn't matter. I'll just grin and show you the last comment, dashing in just a few ago, and are representative of so many since last April.
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New Free the Animal, Resistant Starch-Based Dietary Guidelines
Alright time to connect dots and integrate. What does a Paleoish diet look like now, in my view?
Let's make it really simple. I could shoot you tons of research, references, etc. Best you just give it a whirl for 30 days or more, see how you feel. Any Qs, drop 'em in comments. Calories count, but we needn't bother counting them. This ought 100% alleviate any need for that (for most folks, anyway). Tons of folks are doing great with this style and it's easy and flexible, with tons of options.
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